Despite being the largest state in the union (the state of Alaska, of course, did not yet exist) Texas had never before participated in any expositions, which were taking place every few years in different cities around the country. It had bypassed the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, celebrating the hundredth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and attended by ten million people, and it had missed the Atlanta World’s Fair and Great International Exposition in 1881 and the Southern Exposition two years later in Louisville. But Governor Ireland himself had decreed that the New Orleans Exposition would be Texas’s great coming-out party—its moment to show the rest of the nation that it was no longer a second-rate state filled with gun-toting outlaws and savage Indians. It also would be his first opportunity to introduce himself to voters from other states in case he decided someday to run for president, as some of his supporters were encouraging him to do.
The exposition had been built on a 249-acre former plantation located between downtown and the Mississippi River. Among the structures erected on the site were the Horticultural Building, the Machinery Building, the Factory Building, four buildings to accommodate all the horses, and two buildings to accommodate all the cattle. There was an observation tower with never-before-seen electric elevators and an outdoor exhibit of experimental electrically powered streetcars.
The centerpiece of the exposition was the massive U.S. Government & State Exhibits Hall, thirty-three acres in size—at the time, the largest roofed structure in the world—and illuminated with 5,000 electric lights. Toward the front of the hall was the historic Liberty Bell, which had been brought from Philadelphia by train in the care of armed guards. Nearby, surrounded by velvet ropes, was one of Davy Crockett’s rifles, lying on a table.
Ireland’s staff had rented nearly half an acre on the main floor of the U.S. Government & State Exhibits Hall for the “Texas Department.” No other state had come close to securing that much space. Spelled out in bales of cotton at the entrance to the department were the words “Lone Star,” and spelled out in sacks of grain was “Welcome to Texas.” Printed in big block letters on a giant billboard, easily ten feet high and ten feet across, was the slogan: “Texas! A Most Healthful State. A Cotton State. A Grain State. A Sugar State. A Tobacco State. A Garden State. A Fruit State. A Livestock State. A Timber State. An Iron and Coal State. A Marble and Granite State. A Manufacturing State. A Mercantile State. A Superbly Sceneried State.”
And just to make sure visitors got the message, there was a marble globe in the center of the exhibition that showed Texas to be bigger in size than the United States and all the countries of Europe combined. (The phrase “Everything is bigger in Texas,” which would become the state’s most popular motto, probably was first uttered in New Orleans in April 1885.)
Wide-eyed visitors wandered through the Texas Department and stared at displays of everything Texan: bark from 150 Texas trees, tufts of 860 different Texas grasses, specimens of 220 types of rocks and minerals, and 207 kinds of Texas cactus. In large cabinets were 10,000 different Texas insects and 350 species of Texas spiders pinned to cushions. In one corner, mounted on wooden stands, were several hundred stuffed Texas birds and wild Texas animals. In another corner were poems on poster boards written by Texas poets, including, naturally, a poem by Austin’s portly Mrs. Martha Hotchkiss Whitten. In another corner were paintings of Texas landscapes, pottery made from Texas clay, and Texas-made curtains, quilts, and furniture, including a chair built out of Texas cattle horns.
The Texas Department became the surprise hit of the entire exposition. A correspondent from the Fort Worth Gazette wrote that “people from Europe and the South American Republics seem much more interested in the display Texas is making, and many intelligent people from the North who know Texas only through the medium of the yellow-back novel and who expected to see her represented by mustang ponies, bowie-knives and six-shooters, stand amazed at the display.” A New Orleans Picayune reporter noted that after seeing the exhibits of the Texas Department, even women and children “were expressing the most vehement desire to purchase a [railroad] ticket to go over to the country [of Texas].”
For the April 21 Texas Day ceremony, Ireland was scheduled to make the keynote speech. At least 10,000 people, twice the expected number, purchased tickets for the ceremony. Seated on the front platform, which was the size of a horse corral, were at least 800 Texas dignitaries, ranging from politicians to University of Texas professors to a handful of Houston socialites.
Ireland spoke about Texas’s unprecedented new prosperity, calling the state “an empire of itself, with an insignificant debt and bonds valued so highly that they command a forty percent premium.” He moved on to the subject of crime in Texas. “True, you occasionally hear of a six-shooter and a Bowie knife,” he told his audience, “but after living in the state for thirty-five years, and never in that time having found it necessary to carry either a six-shooter or Bowie knife except during the war, I can say that in Texas no man need go armed to protect himself.”
Ireland was getting excited—a reporter there noticed spittle whitening the corners of his mouth. The governor raised his hands and proclaimed, “There seems to be a circle of inspiration about the very name of Texas! Its mere utterance visionizes the brain! It causes troops of thought to come tripping on the tongue, and the lips refuse to be dumb. So on behalf of Texas, we extend an invitation to the world to settle within our limits, where we promise everyone a hearty welcome, education for your children, health and prosperity!”
The applause was deafening. A little girl came to the stage to present flowers to Ireland, and he leaned down to give her a tiny kiss on the lips. A young woman, completely entranced with the tall Texas governor, walked up to present him with another bouquet. According to a newspaper report, the crowd began “to cheer vociferously,” hoping he would kiss her, too.
Ireland hesitated, glancing over at his wife, who was seated on the platform. Mrs. Ireland was a very proper woman. Because she believed that dancing was sinful, she had refused to go to either of her husband’s inaugural balls. She gave her husband a pinch-faced stare. Observed the Daily Statesman, “If ever John Ireland was thoroughly nonplussed, this was the time.” Ireland turned to the young lady and puckered his lips. But at the very last moment, he made a deep bow—and the crowd groaned. Yet they gave him one more ovation. They had loved his speech. His future on the national stage seemed certain.
Afterward, invited guests adjourned to the Texas Department, where champagne punch was served and ladies were presented with bouquets of artificial flowers that had been made in Texas. The party lasted into the night, but when everyone left the building, it still looked as if it was the middle of the day. Throughout the exposition’s grounds were 125-f00t-high towers that held giant, newly invented electric “arc lamps,” each of which emitted “36,000 candlepower.” They created so much light that the exposition’s visitors literally could see blades of grass on the lawn.
The Austin visitors were impressed, but for many of them, the lamps appeared to be more like a pointless curiosity than a helpful invention. Why, they asked, would anyone want to go to such expense to light up a city throughout the night? What possible purpose would it serve?
* * *
By the time everyone got back to Austin, the spring temperatures were perfectly splendid and the downtown sidewalks crowded with shoppers. On tables in front of Gammell’s Book Shoppe, the manager was displaying the science-fiction novels of Jules Verne along with the perennial bestseller Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ (written by Lew Wallace, the former territorial governor of New Mexico). On wooden stands in front of his Congress Avenue office, one of the city’s dentists, Dr. C. B. Stoddard, displayed his collection of biblical scenes, which he had purchased in Europe, and in front of his shop, Dr. Albert Hawkes, an optician, offered passersby the opportunity to try on the latest optical invention: “Patent Extension Spring Eye-Glasses,” spectacles with dark green lenses tha
t were guaranteed to block the glaring rays of the sun.
Several citizens stood in line at the Capital Gaslight Company to buy incandescent lamps that they planned to install in their homes, while others lined up at the Southwestern Telegraph and Telephone Company to order telephones. (Among those who had ordered a phone was the pastor at the First Baptist Church, who planned to use his to “broadcast” his sermons on Sunday mornings to all of the party-line subscribers.) A couple of salesmen were on the Avenue hawking “patent medicines”: pills and ointments that cured everything from acne to baldness to farting. Down at Radam’s Horticultural Emporium, at the southern edge of downtown, florist William Radam was not only selling freshly cut flowers, he was offering his customers samples of a pinkish elixir that he was calling Radam’s Microbe Killer. Although the elixir was actually nothing more than 99 percent water along with a few dashes of red wine and some hydrochloric and sulfuric acid, Radam claimed that he had tried out his concoction on a group of Negro men as well as on himself and that within six months, “all those minute but evil creatures of the body” had disappeared. Radam, who smelled like cabbage, solemnly told his customers that his product could very well become “the greatest discovery of the age.”
Over at city hall, Mayor Robertson and some of the city’s leading businessmen were working on a 220-page catalogue which was titled The Industries of Austin, Texas. Commercial Manufacturing Advantages & Historical, Descriptive and Biographical Facts, Figures & Illustrations. Industry and Improvement and Enterprise! Robertson planned to send copies to libraries and bookstores around the South and Southwest in hopes of encouraging even more businesses to relocate to Austin. In gloriously flowery language, the catalogue’s text gushed on and on about Austin’s “new wealth”—enough to keep five jewelry stores in business, the catalogue proclaimed—as well as its “elegant homes,” its “upright churches” (eighteen in all), and its numerous “institutions of learning,” ranging from the University of Texas, which that spring was “overflowing” with 230 students studying English literature, European history, ancient languages, law, physics, and “moral and mental philosophy,” to the Stuart Seminary for young ladies desiring a classical education, to the Capitol Business College for those wishing to master the typewriter. All in all, the catalogue’s text concluded, Austin was “the American Oxford of the Southwest … the seat of rare intelligence, culture and wealth … with unrivaled advantages for establishing greater distinction in the near future.”
Finally, on April 27, Mayor Robertson and the aldermen disbanded the temporary police program. All remained calm—for exactly two days. On the night of April 29, a man entered a small cabin in the backyard of a home on West Walnut Street, grabbed a German servant woman in her bed, covered her mouth with his hands to stifle her screams, threw her to the floor, and disappeared.
Later that same evening, a man entered the servants’ quarters of a home on Mulberry Street. The cook who lived there was gone but a female friend was sleeping in a bed. The man grabbed her throat with one hand, held a razor with his other hand, and threatened to kill her if she screamed. At that moment, the cook and another black woman came into the backyard, and seeing the open servants’ quarters door, called to their friend inside. The man raced out the door and ran away. Once again, it was dark and difficult to see, but one of the women said she could have sworn the man was wearing a woman’s dress.
The next night, someone hurled a large stone at a servant woman’s cabin in the backyard of a home on Rio Grande Street. A neighbor heard the woman’s cries, ran outside, and shot at a man he saw running away. He missed, and the man kept running. An hour later, J. M. Brackenridge, the president of the City National Bank, was awakened by a noise in his backyard. Looking out a window, peering into the darkness, he saw his cook, an elderly black woman, struggling with a man. Brackenridge shouted at the man, who fled. But a few hours later, either the man or someone else returned and “rocked the house” (the phrase that police used to describe someone throwing rocks at a home).
Over the next couple of days, Chenneville and his officers arrested three more black men—Andrew Jackson, Newt Harper, and Henry Wallace—who were described in the newspapers as “hard-looking Negroes.” They also arrested Jack Ross, a black man who worked as a janitor at the Variety Theatre (where the blond Miss Ida St. Clair danced for the cowboys), and an elderly black man who was known around Austin as “Old John.”
Old John had spent some time over the past year at the State Lunatic Asylum after he was heard telling people he was worth $260 million in gold, which he secretly had buried beside the Colorado River. He had been released by Dr. Denton, who decided that he was completely harmless. But now, reported the Daily Statesman, the police “believed on good grounds” that Old John was the man seen in a dress during that attack of the servant woman at her quarters on Mulberry Street. “It is also thought that he had a hand in the outrageous attacks made a few weeks ago [in March],” added the newspaper.
In truth, Chenneville and his officers had no idea at all whether Old John, or any of the other men they had arrested, had committed any of the attacks. Hoping to get someone to break, they chained the black men to iron rings cemented to the floor of the calaboose and subjected them to brutal interrogations—“examinations,” one of the newspapers reporters euphemistically called them. Yet none of them confessed to anything. The suspects insisted that they had never broken into anyone’s servants’ quarters and that they had no desire to harm servant women.
Nevertheless, with the latest round of arrests, the attacks once again came to a stop. During the first week of May, there were light rains, which were followed by spectacularly beautiful sunsets. As dusk descended, church bells tolled, and bats flew out from their hiding places and turned long, dark circles in the sky, the sound of their beating wings like a deck of shuffling cards. Henry Stamps, the lamplighter, walked the downtown streets, lighting the gas lamps. One by one, they sprang to life, a row of flickering isolated globes. Saloon owners propped open their front doors, out of which poured the sound of laughter and rinky-tink piano music. Because women weren’t allowed into saloons in 1885, a couple of the saloon owners had their waiters carry out gin fizzes to their male customers’ wives and girlfriends who were sitting by the curb in their carriages.
On the afternoon of May 6, there was another rain, followed by another stunning sunset. Over on the city’s east side, some of the black residents went to a black Baptist church to witness the wedding of Miss Lucie A. Lomax, the daughter of a shopkeeper, to Mr. H. G. Grant, a young schoolteacher. A thirty-one-year-old servant named Eliza Shelley did not attend the wedding. She was working at the home of her employer, Dr. Lucian Johnson, a medical doctor and former state legislator who had been described as “a well-known citizen of the city.”
That evening, Eliza fixed dinner for the Johnson family. Afterward she cleaned the kitchen, polished the stove and silverware, and then retired to her little cabin in the Johnsons’ backyard, forty or fifty steps from the main house—a cabin so small that she had to stoop to avoid bumping her head as she came through the door. Inside the cabin, she fed her three young boys, the oldest of whom was seven, with scraps of food she had collected from the Johnsons’ dinner table, and soon she and the children climbed into their bed.
Eliza and the two smallest boys were at the head of the bed; the seven-year-old was at the end. Eliza’s husband, William, was not there; in early 1884, he had been sent to the state penitentiary for five years for stealing a horse.
The next morning at six, just at the break of day, Dr. Johnson rose and left for the market to buy groceries for the family. While he was gone, his wife heard Eliza’s children screaming—“crying and hallooing at a fearful rate,” she would later say. She sent her young niece, who was barely a teenager, out to the cabin. Within a couple of minutes, Mrs. Johnson heard her niece screaming, too. The girl ran back to the main house and collapsed into Mrs. Johnson’s arms, so terrified she couldn’t speak a
word.
Dr. Johnson returned from the market, spoke to his wife, walked out to the cabin, and opened the door. In a corner of the room were Eliza’s three boys, huddled together. On the floor next to the bed, wrapped in a quilted bedspread, was Eliza. Parts of her brain were oozing out of a gaping wound in her right temple.
CHAPTER SEVEN
When Sergeant Chenneville arrived at the Johnsons’, he walked into the cabin and noticed that both of Eliza’s trunks had been broken open and her garments scattered over the floor. He ordered that Eliza’s body be taken out to the backyard, where there was more sunlight. Police officers removed the bedspread from Eliza’s body, only to find that underneath was a white counterpane (quilt) that had also been wrapped around her. When the counterpane was removed, everyone finally got a look at the extent of Eliza’s wounds.
Besides an ax wound to her skull, there was a small hole between her eyes that looked as if it had been made by a screwdriver or some sort of thin iron rod, and there were several knife wounds up and down her body. Some of them were easily four inches deep: the blade had been plunged all the way into her body and pulled directly out, severing blood vessels, muscle tissue, and cartilage.
Everyone in the yard stood still, trying to keep their stomachs from heaving. The reporters soon arrived, their Faber notebooks in their hands. They watched as Chenneville’s bloodhounds circled Eliza’s body like vultures. The dogs sniffed what were described as “large, broad, barefoot tracks” that had been found leading to and from Eliza’s cabin. They ran out to the back alley. But once again, Chenneville was out of luck. To quote a San Antonio newspaper reporter who was there, “Mr. Chenneville’s bloodhounds refused to take a scent.”
The Midnight Assassin: Panic, Scandal, and the Hunt for America's First Serial Killer Page 7
